U.S. SAYS IT WON`T BUY HOSTAGES

God and country rarely require a U.S. marine to speak about the death of a spouse, support the president in a crisis, and urge calm reflection after the murder of a loved one.

But Maj. Robin Higgins marched to a Pentagon podium Tuesday and, in an unfaltering voice, delivered a message of courage and integrity to honor her husband, Lt. Col. William Richard Higgins, slain by Shiite Moslem captors in Lebanon.

''Now is not the time for anger and bitterness, for recriminations and blame,'' said Maj. Higgins, the only evidence of emotional toll a slight shake in her hand and a brief, passing tremor in her face.

''Now is the time for calm reflection, for kind thoughts of the man who has brought us together. Now is the time to tell Rich Higgins that we love him and miss him.''

Higgins, 38, said Gen. Alfred Gray, commandant of the Marine Corps, informed her Monday of the ''virtual certainty'' that her husband was dead. President Bush then telephoned to offer ''support and sympathy.''

''I am also mindful of the fact that our president has agonized in a very profound and personal manner over my husband`s fate,'' Higgins said. ''He has my prayers and my support as he tries to save the living and end the suffering.''

Her five-paragraph statement, read in the Pentagon briefing room, came one day after the FBI concluded ''within a reasonable degree of medical certainty'' that the man shown hanged in a terrorists` videotape was her husband.

''He always had a need to fulfill a destiny, a need based on a profound sense of duty,'' Higgins said of her husband.

''He wrote in his high school yearbook his goal was `to always make my family proud of me.` He succeeded.''

Her husband, commander of a UN observer force, was abducted in February, 1988.

An Islamic terrorist group announced July 31 that he had been killed in retaliation for the Israeli seizure of a Moslem cleric, Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid, in southern Lebanon.

A Pentagon spokesman said no progress has been made in arranging the return of the marine`s body, and it is believed he may have been dead long before his ''execution'' was announced.

Col. Higgins, 44, is also survived by a daughter, Christine, 19, from a previous marriage.

In praising her husband, Maj. Higgins said he ''taught us that words such as honor, reputation, integrity and fidelity have real meaning.''

''To those who would suggest that our concern for Rich should somehow be mitigated because he was in a dangerous business or because his act of volunteering was supposedly foolish, Rich himself would have the appropriate reply: `When you`re out front, people will shoot at you.` ''

Higgins, on leave from her assignment to the Pentagon press office, wore a crisp summer uniform with two rows of military ribbons.

Oversized eyeglasses accented her small face.

Friends in the Pentagon said Higgins drafted her statement late Monday and asked to have it cleared through official channels. But her offer for clearance was deemed unnecessary by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

''The secretary said this is her personal statement. She doesn`t have to worry about the bureaucracy. It is entirely up to her,'' according to Pete Williams, chief Pentagon spokesman.

In introducing Higgins, Williams asked that she be allowed to read her statement and depart without answering questions.

At the end of her comments, Higgins walked briskly from a silent press room.